Abstract
Social psychologists have evidence that evaluative feedback on others’ choices sometimes has unwelcome negative effects on hearers’ motivation. Holroyd’s article (Holroyd J. Ethical Theory Moral Pract 10:267–278, 2007) draws attention to one such result, the undermining effect, that should help to challenge moral philosophers’ complacency about blame and praise. The cause for concern is actually greater than she indicates, both because there are multiple kinds of negative effect on hearer motivation, and because these are not, as she hopes, reliably counteracted by implicit features of praise and blame. The communicative ideal that she articulates does point us in the right direction, but it requires further elaboration. Once it is spelled out, we find that realizing this ideal, in light of the empirical research, requires rethinking the role of verdict-like judgments within moral feedback.
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Notes
Holroyd’s term is “moral appraisal”, but I emphasze “feedback” to clarify our focus here on critical messages intended in good faith for the agent, as opposed to evaluative comments intended to express solidarity with a victim, or to give notice to others about someone's character, etc. Our concern, furthermore, is just with unsolicited moral feedback, since the empirical research in question does not involve cases in which subjects have taken the initiative in seeking out critical feedback or advice. Presumably, fewer risks attend feedback that is explicitly or implicitly sought out.
Though Holroyd refers several times to “moral motivation,” her main concerns are minimally related to philosophical debates over whether “moral motivation” is a distinctive kind of motivation springing directly from moral belief. On any view short of extreme Socratic internalism—on which real moral knowledge trumps other factors and suffices to settle a person’s intentions—factors besides moral belief affect the strength of a person’s motivation in actual circumstances. The negative effects on motivation discussed by social psychologists presumably affect overall motivation to comply with a particular norm only by affecting motivational factors other than the supposedly stable internalist kind of reason—“just because it’s right.” Some philosophers might prefer to say, then, that the issue is whether feedback can undermine non-moral aspects of a hearer’s motivation to follow moral norms. While I think it is reasonable to speak of a person’s motivation as more or less attuned to specific moral concerns, I see no neat line separating moral and non-moral kinds of motivation.
See, for example, Birch et al 1984 for an early study focused on backfiring praise; researchers concur, however, that praise undermines motivation in fairly limited circumstances. Claims about the detrimental effects of tangible rewards and incentives (Grant 2006) have inspired controversy—see Eisenberger and Cameron 1996, and a 2001 exchange in the Review of Educational Research (Deci, Ryan and Koestner 2001; Cameron 2001). At any rate, the controversy over the impact of rewards is not central to our inquiry here.
Extrinsic motivation may be too simply modeled by Deci and Ryan, however. The potential intersection of approach and avoidance motivations is discussed by Covington and Müeller 2001.
See, for example, Linda Hamilton Krieger 1995.
It is quite remarkable that Strawson uses this identical phrase (with one variation in word order) three times in “Freedom and Resentment” (48, 62, 66 in Fischer and Ravizza 1999). This phrase serves to obscure the fact that the range of effects one can care about is not reducible the rather manipulative-sounding goal of “regulating behavior in socially desirable ways.”
Kant might endorse this approach but for his confidence that a given problem (what he would call the impossibility of willing a particular world) will lead all people to the same norms. Because our perspectives and insights differ, we should not only allow that others will suggest different norms; we should hope so.
For related reflections on “calling” as a crucial metaphor wherever moral demands come into play, see Rebecca Kukla 2002.
Critics may be wise to conserve their efforts and move on, of course—though even in such cases they will often intentionally or unintentionally inspire others to take up the same concerns in other ways.
Deci and Ryan (1987) explicitly distance themselves from this broad generalization, however.
Noddings (1984) structures all moral concerns around the theme of caring, and makes additional claims about how the moral educator must illustrate a particular commitment to be emulated by the one cared-for. The point in question here need not be tied to those aspects of her view.
There is another distinct reason to avoid expressing summary verdicts on others’ actions: some philosophers simply do not believe moral judgments can be made in a black-and-white fashion. A utilitarian may argue that all action fits within a greyscale continuum between better and worse (Norcross 1997). A virtue-ethicist may go further: just as moves in chess occupy a vast field of qualitative difference that even a good player does not pretend to have mastered, our characteristic moral choices might be obviously better or worse, yes, but often they differ by being bolder or safer, public-minded or privately perfectionistic, etc. Emphasis on the good and the bad may blunt appreciation (both ours and our hearers’) of such differences. I find this line plausible, but it is tangential to the central argument here.
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Acknowledgments
Many thanks to Jules Holroyd for collegial and illuminating dialogue; to comments by my colleagues at Wesleyan University, and by Philip Bennett, Scott Plous, David Slutsky, and Rajal Cohen. Thanks also to the careful critical attention of anonymous reviewers at this journal.
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Springer, E. Moral Feedback and Motivation: Revisiting the Undermining Effect. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 11, 407–423 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-008-9116-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-008-9116-8